ow, "what no human being must know, but what they would all
so willingly know--what is bad in their neighbor. Had I written a
newspaper, it would have been read! But I wrote direct to the persons
themselves, and there was consternation in all the towns where I came.
They were so afraid of me, and yet they were so excessively fond of
me. The professors made a professor of me; the tailors gave me new
clothes--I am well furnished; the master of the mint struck new coin for
me, and the women said I was so handsome! And so I became the man I am.
And I now bid you farewell. Here is my card--I live on the sunny side
of the street, and am always at home in rainy weather!" And so away went
the shadow. "That was most extraordinary!" said the learned man. Years
and days passed away, then the shadow came again. "How goes it?" said
the shadow.

"Alas!" said the learned man. "I write about the true, and the good,
and the beautiful, but no one cares to hear such things; I am quite
desperate, for I take it so much to heart!"

"But I don't!" said the shadow. "I become fat, and it is that one wants
to become! You do not understand the world. You will become ill by it.
You must travel! I shall make a tour this summer; will you go with me?
I should like to have a travelling companion! Will you go with me, as
shadow? It will be a great pleasure for me to have you with me; I shall
pay the travelling expenses!"

"Nay, this is too much!" said the learned man.

"It is just as one takes it!" said the shadow. "It will do you much good
to travel! Will you be my shadow? You shall have everything free on the
journey!"

"Nay, that is too bad!" said the learned man.

"But it is just so with the world!" said the shadow, "and so it will
be!" and away it went again.

The learned man was not at all in the most enviable state; grief and
torment followed him, and what he said about the true, and the good, and
the beautiful, was, to most persons, like roses for a cow! He was quite
ill at last.

"You really look like a shadow!" said his friends to him; and the
learned man trembled, for he thought of it.

"You must go to a watering-place!" said the shadow, who came and visited
him. "There is nothing else for it! I will take you with me for old
acquaintance' sake; I will pay the travelling expenses, and you write
the descriptions--and if they are a little amusing for me on the way!
I will go to a watering-place--my beard does not grow out as it
ough